Copper Smelting Pushed Back to 5000 BC-ish

[Digit]

That's cremation using an external heat source Min as opposed to using the bones as fuel, though of course during cremation the bones may add their energy as fuel.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Might be an interesting experiment. If you have no wood what would you use to get the bone to burn?

[Digit]

Dry grass Min, if there's fat on the bone that then starts to burn, it also melts and flows onto the grass and contributes to the process of getting the bone to burn.
I'm surprised that there seems to be so little info on the subject.

Roy.

[Digit]

http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~mikkomat/bones.pdf

As you can see from above Min bone is a very effective fuel even when wood is available, but still no mention of the temperature!

Roy.

[Cognito]

Just to throw a spanner into the works, does anybody happen to know the temperaure that can be achieved by burning bones?

Look here: http://web.mac.com/linnog/Fire_Arch/Bone.html

Copper smelting would not be a problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting

[Digit]

But none of this answers what temp is achieved by using bone as a fuel!
My previous post showed that bone would have achieved a more consistant temp than wood as wood temps would rise and fall with repeated stoking, the longer burning period shown in the post would indicate that the wood would have been consumed more rapidly than the bone.
This would seem to indicate to me that bone would have ultimately become the chosen fuel, after all it would have been a waste product otherwise.

Roy.

[Cognito]

On the contrary, it appears to me that you could keep the temperature constant by observing the colour of the bone pile as it is burning. It looks as if 600C would be easy to achieve and maintain, thereby smelting copper easily. If I had spare bones in my closet, I would test the assumption. Digit, you're the engineer, so what did I miss?

[Minimalist]

But the Med was heavily wooded in antiquity. There would have been no shortage of firewood.

[Digit]

I meant with wood being added at frequent interval Cog, bone would seem to give a better result as it appears to burn longer, thus giving a more consistant heat. Burning for longer would also be an advantage on cold nights, less stoking.
Min, imagine this, we're out hunting and kill a large animal, first we butcher it down to transportable sizes then we head home for the heroes welcome!
On the way we stop off to search for and collect dead falls for burning, which adds to our load, back at base the meat is butchered for drying etc and a fire started using the wood to cook some of the meat.
....then we throw the bones away!
Suggesting that smelting followed from firing clay only moves the problem one step to the side as we don't how that was worked out, all that I've read suggests the development of bellows etc, but in some instances that is not necessary, but still needs a lot of working out, luck, plus trial and error.
It is worth noting that in the UK we have extensive clay beds that contain shale oil, that stuff fires its self!

Roy.